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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has signed contracts for mobile data extraction tools whose origins trace back to Russia’s digital forensics industry, according to a new investigation.
The findings, published by TVP World and based on research by two analysts, have raised questions about oversight and potential security implications.
Contract under scrutiny
In September 2024, ICE renewed a contract with Virginia-based Oxygen Forensics Inc., a company that develops software designed to extract and analyse data from smartphones and other digital devices used in criminal investigations.
The tools can recover encrypted or deleted communications and are widely used in law enforcement work.
However, an analysis by Olga Lautman, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), and journalist Andrei Luchkov alleges the company has historical ties to Russia. According to their report, Oxygen Software was founded in Moscow in the early 2000s before expanding to the United States in 2013 under the name Oxygen Forensics.
US government records show the firm has held contracts with ICE, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs and Border Protection and the State Department.
Alleged Russian links
The researchers state that the original Russian entity was later renamed MKO-Systems and developed a domestic arm called Mobile Forensic, now described as a leading smartphone extraction platform in Russia.
According to procurement records and court documents cited in the analysis, tools produced by the parallel Russian entity were supplied to agencies including the FSB and Russia’s Interior Ministry and used in sensitive prosecutions.
Lautman and Luchkov also report that Eduard Bendersky, a sanctioned Russian businessman and former FSB member, was an investor in the broader Oxygen holding structure. Bendersky is the father-in-law of Maxim Yakubets, whom the FBI has identified as the alleged leader of the cybercrime group Evil Corp. The US has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to Yakubets’ arrest.
Calls for oversight
There is no public evidence of direct operational cooperation between Russian intelligence services and US agencies using Oxygen software.
Oxygen CEO Oleg Fedorov has previously rejected suggestions of improper links, telling Forbes that no employee has worked for the modern-day KGB or FSB. “I know every person and every government has its own goals. I try to stay away as far as I can from their goals and to solve my own,” he said.
Still, Lautman and Luchkov argue that the presence of tools with “documented Russian corporate origins” inside US federal systems warrants closer review. “Congress needs to examine how these contracts were approved, what safeguards are in place, and why federal agencies are relying on technology linked to an adversary’s security ecosystem,” they wrote.
Oxygen Forensics remains registered as an active federal contractor through September 2026.
Sources: TVP World, CEPA
